07 Sep Structured investment products
Structured products offer a classic example of an opportunity for information asymmetry to result in poor outcomes for consumers....
24 Aug Don’t chase dividends
A portfolio constructed from a bottom up dividend-driven approach may be suboptimal and contain risks that may not be fully appreciated....
10 Aug Return fishing with a wide net
Despite the doom and gloom in the news global equity markets (developed and emerging markets combined) have actually risen in 2023 however just nine companies accounted for three-quarters of the 7.2% rise in global markets this year to the end of June. ...
27 Jul Is the 60/40 portfolio dead?
In the past few years, obituaries for a traditional ‘balanced’ portfolio of, say, 60% equity and 40% bonds have been written by quite a number of journalists and fund managers....
13 Jul Is economic forecasting worthwhile?
One of the features of the current economic environment is that central banks are obliged to attempt to forecast what future conditions will be....
29 Jun Recency bias – the scourge of investors
Unfortunately, as humans, we are poorly neurologically wired to be good investors. ...
16 Jun Is it sensible to hold a portfolio that is entirely invested in equities?
Given the battering which investors in some types of bonds have taken in the last few months, it’s understandable when the question arises as to whether they might be better to eschew such assets altogether and opt to invest solely in equities....
01 Jun Just a few stocks drive market returns
It is sometimes easy to forget that when markets rise and fall, we are looking at this through an aggregated, market-capitalisation weighted lens....
11 May Active vs Passive
Active outperforms passive – possibly ‘fake news’...
27 Apr Pension changes
Jeremy Hunt’s March 2023 budget made some important changes to pensions, some of which were kept under wraps until the actual speech and only appeared afterwards in the ‘small print’....